


The Traveling Cup

by Kazekaitou



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Developing Relationship, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), No Beta, Unnamed Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Valentione's Fic Exchange (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29836452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazekaitou/pseuds/Kazekaitou
Summary: Quick one-shot Coffee Shop A/U, establishing a relationship.The Traveling Cup was basically what it advertised - a pop-up coffee shop selling small-batch coffee from the world over at a location for a moon or two before disappearing into the night. For this dark-skinned Miqo’te, it was a way of life. To see the world, to meet interesting people and make enough to live.
Relationships: Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Bookclub Valentione's Fic Exchange 2021





	The Traveling Cup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TenkeyLess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenkeyLess/gifts).



> This was written for The Valentines Exchange, I got sick for a week right around when this was due so it's a few days late. It's the first time I had written Emet-Selch at all, so I hope you all enjoy!

The Traveling Cup was basically what it advertised - a pop-up coffee shop selling small-batch coffee from the world over at a location for a moon or two before disappearing into the night. For this dark-skinned Miqo’te, it was a way of life. To see the world, to meet interesting people and make enough to live. 

It was her own design, a portable cafe to build and unbuild at her whims on other’s property, a way to cast comfort in sometimes more desolate places, a time to share something peaceful when things were without. 

Today was a new shop and a new day, the sun barely kissing the horizon. She’d set up near a university this time, in the blank space of the restaurant that had come and gone before her. She’d transported large comfortable chairs, small enchanted lanterns to hang from the ceilings, and her coffee and coffee equipment, set up behind a long dark-wood counter, where she could watch her patrons.

It does not take long for the smell of coffee to fill the room, or for the first curious soul to wander in and get their drink, followed by another. Most leave immediately. Some find a chair, some find a space at the window to watch others drift by. It is random as she watches and listens. 

She knows little of where she is at, outside from walking around the area, looking up at tall stone buildings built by those who came before. The people seem nice enough, mostly students dedicated to various crafts from the few conversations she’d managed to have. 

The bell on the door rang softly and she looked up from her thoughts. A tall, lanky man walked in, eying details of the place silently, looking up at the lighting, scanning the chairs, making swift judgments before landing on her. He carried the air of someone cultured, in a tailored suit with his own flourishes.

“Show me your best.” He stated simply, even tone, almost uninterested as if he was someone who could not be impressed yet demanded it. She looked him over and quickly assumes he should smell like coffee and whisky, far late into the morning hours.

She had met this type before, and she would meet this type again.

“Ahh, but coffee is customizable to your tastes- so your best is not mine, do you not think?”

The corner of his mouth smirked. His piercing eyes looked at her again, past violet fluffy ears and swishing tail and she felt uncomfortable for a moment.

“Hmm, I suppose you may be right.”

“Do you like bitter, highly caffeinated, dark, light? Surely you must have a preference of some sort.”

“I am one who requires intense concentration to do my work.” He stated simply, “The drink is just a means to an end.”

“Very well.” 

She turned away, swift fingers picking bean from the highlands of Corethas, a coffee that managed to pack an energy boost and taste slightly sweet with this nutty undertone that gave it a wordless complexity. She busied herself with the equipment before producing an elixir to wake the dead (or the frigid hearts of the Ishhgardians). She added just a dash of cream, before sliding it across the counter towards him.

He took it in long fingers, bringing it up slowly to his lips before taking a momentary sip. His golden eyes widened. Before he could say something, someone came in stating “Professor!” He turned, face almost a momentary frown, and the poor kid backed off with a bit of an apology.

Almost as an afterthought, he stated “I will be back. Remember this order for me?” He dropped some gil on the counter before turning away and heading out.

She sighed. One of _those_. But remembered it she did. “And to who does this order belong?” She called out but he was almost out the door and did not respond.

“Professor Emet-Selch, the Architect.” The student filled the silence, “He harshly judges all things. But he is known worldwide for his work.”

“Ah, I see. That explains it. Thank you. Coffee?”

“God yes, I have a class with him in forty-five minutes.”

“Good luck then.”

“I’ll need it.” 

\----

She’d nearly forgotten about him by the time he arrived the next morning, with long strides up to the counter. “My order.”

She just nodded, already having started to prepare it, swiftly providing him the drink. He sipped slowly with a bit of a nod, hovering at the counter. 

“This coffee shop is temporary?” He asked.

“I leave when I am ready. There is not a time scheduled date, the lease is for three moons, but I am not tied.”

“Tis a shame that you will not stay, this coffee is perfection.” 

“I like learning about new things, new places, new stories. It is a way to learn the world, its...” 

“Unattached.” He interrupted, gazing through her in a way that made her want to look at the floor and apologize. 

He continued, “It is interesting. I design for history, for moments when someone can look up at look up and see a civilization, a people can derive meaning through structure... A commentary tied to one plot, to one place, to one city. And you-” He gazed as if in thought.

“Buildings are but a frame for a picture painted through time is what I think. Everything you have designed is still evolving, changing, don’t you think?”

“Your honesty is noted. Few dare say anything to me but boring platitudes and chasing questions from the youth. It is refreshing.”

She picked up her own coffee and tipped it towards him, and he nodded simply.

“Your perception of this place is different than yesterday I assume?” Mismatched eyes of green and orange watch him carefully.

He smiled. “It may be. But its design is the same, and you are the same.” 

The bell rang and another entered, so she busied herself by serving them. She did not notice how he lingered.

The next day, he brought his work. 

\---

She had to admit that Emit Selch looked like a god leaning over a too-low coffee table with blueprints ontop of it, an ink pen in one hand, thick black hair falling into his eyes. He stared intensely, making little notations, sketches of what the final building would look like settled into the corner. Sometimes, someone brave would interrupt his thought, and ask a question. He’d lean back, take a slow sip of his coffee then shoo them off with a simple flick of his hand or go into in-depth explanations when the mood struck him. It was likely this random appeasement that kept his students coming back. When they hit the jackpot with him he explained his thoughts in intimate detail. 

She was beginning to love the sound of his voice. The way it hardened when he was bored of their questions, but the way it sang when he explained something important to him. She was learning to read him beneath that veneer of superiority, it seemed that he was an honest man to a fault. And his coffee was low.

So she stopped by with another cup- he’d moved to ceramic in-house cups now- and pulled the old one away.

His hand reached out grabbing her wrist but not leaving the page.

“I’m not done yet.” 

She gasped, almost dropping it on his paperwork, and he looked over and grimaced. “I apologize, that was not appropriate of me.”

She rubbed her wrist against her chest, watching him, carefully. He closed his eyes, “Sometimes I lose myself in my work.”

“Then it sounds like you need a break.”

“Mayhap. And you?” She shrugged looking around at customers milling about, but no one looking particularly in need. “Why don’t you tell me about this city?”

He closed his eyes, rolling up his blueprints. “When does the cafe close?”

“When the sun falls, usually.”

“Then I shall return.”

\---

He did not lie. He returned at dusk in his normal impeccable black attire, waiting silently as she finished the final clean-up and locked the door for another day. He straightened up from where he had been leaning at the door. 

“Come, I have things to show you.”

He was fiendishly complex in silence. His movements practice, graceful, without hesitation or fear. He took her by the arm with little commentary, and she was swimming in the uncertainty of what was between them if anything. She was leaving. He had ties here. She knew this.

They arrived at a field, a park tucked near the center of town, an open space used for many things she imagined. 

“What do you see?”

“A park?”

He almost sighed aloud and she felt admonished, and _judged._ And fiddling with the apron she was still wearing _why was she still wearing the apron_ she continued sort of panicked.

“It’s not _just_ a park. Its community. Its people coming together. Its picnics in the warm sun. It’s families letting their children play. It’s a place _shared_ and it’s just as important…”

“Do you think it could have a better use?” He asked.

She frowned. She looked around at the buildings around it. Close together. Little green. A bit hodgepodge. This was the centerpiece of this area. She shifted between pleasing him and telling him no. 

“What do you think?” She asked him back.

“Please, indulge me with your thoughts first.”

She walked into the grass, kicking off her shoes, before picking them up to walk on the soft grass. He raised an eyebrow but followed her as she wandered the field for a few minutes before sitting down. 

“Look at the stars.”

“That does not answer my question.”

She smiled, “No, it does not. But I will get to my thoughts if you can have patience.”

He paused, considering his response and she almost barked in laughter at how almost petulant he looked. “So the stars. How much do you know about them?”

He looked up and shrugged, “Constellations, myths of creation, that is what is written in the sky.”

“When I look at things...I see them as possibilities. Stories untold. Shapes to connect in the night sky, things to discover, patterns to unravel. It’s not about the grass in this park or the pinpricks of light from a thousand suns...it’s about the stories we tell each other. When I see this park, it’s about the potential for love, it’s about breakups and bad weather. It’s not a park but what happens in the park.” She frowned. “Is this making any sense?”

He paused. “We are all potential.”

She nodded, hands threading through blades of grass, “So, you, the famous architect asks me about a land space. What do you want to build here?”

“There’s conflict, reasonably so, you say. The city wants a flagship building. The old city hall is too small for the growing city, and the desire to create a new building has come up. The building itself, it is designed, it has been approved. But space, that’s harder. Here was proposed, and there has been significant community opposition. Though, when I’ve asked no one has been able to say why. After all, it is but grass and fields. I wanted an outsider’s perspective. You have done well.”

She rolled her eyes. “But it’s not. Look. There’s a local school, the kids eat lunch here I bet. And there are restaurants. And as you say youth,” She pointed to a young couple kissing across the park, barely noticeable from where they sat.

“Ahh, to have such indiscretion.”

“I bet you can be impulsive.” She states assertively at him.

He stares at her for a moment before shifting himself to be closer to her face “Only if you permit.”

Her eyes widened and her heartbeat so loud in her ears she barely heard herself whisper “Yes.”

He kissed her warm lips against her surprised ones, and she found herself surrounded in warmth she had not expected. She pulled back after a moment, lips parted trying to find some words. 

“Well, that was...unexpected.” He stated and she laughed.

“I’d permit you to do it again if you were so inclined.” 

It was the first time she had seen him smile.


End file.
